From dragons and serpents to many-armed beasts that preyed on ships and sailors alike, sea monsters have terrified mariners across all ages and cultures and have become the subject of many tall tales from the sea. No wonder that early cartographers felt the need to depict such creatures on their maps, whether swimming vigorously, gamboling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation.

Experts in the book world address a broad range of ethical issues that confront collectors of books, manuscripts, maps, and other works on paper or parchment. Speakers will also outline the challenges of preserving the evidence of our past, sometimes in the face of the conflicting interests of buyers, sellers, scholarly and other readers, binders, curators, and conservators.

There’s a special affinity between baseball and the writers who cover it. In the 20th century, baseball accounted for some of the most colorful and conscientious sports journalism. How does baseball inspire such representation in the media? Has the quality of baseball writing changed? Two great sports writers, Lester Munson and John Schulian, will step up to the plate to discuss these questions.

The Newberry has acquired a set of artifacts that may shed new light on the Yalta Conference, the diplomatic gathering of Allied leaders who, in the final months of World War II, established the terms for peace and the new boundaries of postwar Europe.

From the Stacks

Dance cards, known as programmes du bal in French or Tanz-karten in German, are small booklets used mainly by women at formal dances to record their dance partners. Popularized in Vienna in the nineteenth century, dance cards continued to be used throughout the early twentieth century.

On June 18th, 1860, Elizabeth Packard was taken from her home in Manteno, Illinois, and placed in an asylum—without trial or a thorough assembly of evidence to support her institutionalization. Packard’s husband was a devout Calvinist who felt threatened by his wife’s outspoken opposition to his religious views. To silence his wife and protect his reputation, he arranged for Elizabeth’s confinement, which lasted three years.